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Acclaimed French band Air will play a Moon Safari tour with stop in Austin
Legendary French duo Air will go on an extensive North American tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album Moon Safari, which includes a stop at Austin's Moody Amphitheatre on October 30.
They'll also stop at Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas on October 29.
Tickets will be available for presale on March 7 at 10 am via LiveNation. General tickets are on sale on March 8 at 10 am.
Similar to their recent European tour, which sold out in record time, Air will be playing their widely celebrated album in its entirety for the first time ever. The band released the demo version of "New Star In The Sky" ahead of the digital release of the 25th anniversary deluxe album on March 15, featuring over 10 cherry-picked Moon Safari audio rarities.
Since Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel formed the band in 1995, the prolific duo has released six albums in addition to their acclaimed EP Premiers Symptômes, which was followed by the release of the aforementioned classic Moon Safari along with two soundtracks that all together sold millions of copies.
Air garnered an extensive list of worldwide accolades for their unique brand of downtempo electronic music that not only sculpted the sound for the next generation of electronic-influenced pop music, but also was able to withstand the test of time in its own right.
On January 16th 1998, Air released Moon Safari, an album which catapulted Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel to the uppermost rung of electronic music's ladder. Their sound — Fender Rhodes trills, loping basslines, and sensual-yet-playful vocal hooks, all woven into a texture as fine and luxe as chiffon — conjured the sensation of a space-age cocktail designed to be sipped at a leisurely pace. It's not challenging to see how this curious little record became a global sensation.
While Air's precise alchemy and absence of geographical anchoring placed Moon Safari outside the grip of temporality or trend, the album happened to be an orbiting satellite which intersected with the world below's revolutions at precisely the right moment.
Through Moon Safari, Air transfixed some of the great visionaries of the late 20th century — David Bowie, Madonna, Beck — as well as influencing preeminent aesthetes of the incoming age, including Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kevin Parker, and Sofia Coppola, whose creative relationship with Air became as synergetic as that of Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch (another fan, while we're here.) Air helped fan the flames of a rare Francophilia which surging through the typically nativist British charts in 1998.
Moon Safari birthed three hit singles in "Kelly Watch The Stars," "All I Need," and "Sexy Boy," shifted over half a million copies in the UK, and pushed Air into headline contention at banner festivals such as Glastonbury. This in turn brought American, European and even hesitant French audiences and critics in line, a ripple effect which continued into the mid-2000s, with a string of successive top 10 albums for Air, at home and abroad.
North American tour dates are as follows:
*Not a Live Nation Date
9/25 - Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
9/27 - Seattle, WA @ Benaroya Hall
9/29 - Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum
9/30 - Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum
10/2 - San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
10/4 - Denver, CO @ Bellco Theater
10/6 - Minneapolis, MN @ State Theatre
10/8 - Chicago, IL @ Auditorium Theatre
10/10 - Detroit, MI @ Fox Theatre
10/12 - Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
10/13 - Montreal, QC @ Place Bell
10/15 - Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway
10/17 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Met
10/18 Washington DC @ The Anthem*
10/21 - New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
10/24 - Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
10/26 - Miami Beach, FL @ Fillmore Miami Beach
10/29 - Dallas, TX @ Music Hall at Fair Park
10/30 - Austin, TX @ Moody Amphitheatre